Faculty Learning Communities

Faculty Learning Communities (FLCs) create spaces for small groups of faculty to learn, grow and experiment in relation to a shared commitment or goal. FLCs inspire and empower faculty to pursue projects that are germane to the institution with regard to student success, teaching and learning. They also create opportunities for faculty to collaborate with their colleagues across departments and disciplines, nurturing community and disrupting institutional silos.

FLC members guide and determine a community's progress over the year, including choices about meeting dates, readings, training or workshops they may need delivered by on-campus faculty developers, off-campus experiences they have as a group, webinars they participate in, and so on.

Fall 2024 FLC: Scholarship of Teaching and Learning

In this learning community, we will share goals and ideas for enhancing our teaching practices and will share practices we have found to be effective in advancing the mission and vision of SJSU in our teaching. Facilitated by Dr. Lara Kassab (Teacher Education), this learning community will also provide the structure, resources, and time to develop an outline of a manuscript that could be submitted to a journal.

Participating in this FLC will enable you to do the following:

• Reflect on equitable and engaging teaching practices.
• Learn strategies to try in the classroom from a scholar of teaching and learning, and from one another.
• Produce a detailed outline of a manuscript for potential publication.

RSVP for the Fall 2024 FLC by August 29, 2024. 

• The Body Matters: Disability Justice

  • Faculty explored the intersections of disability that inform student academic and social success (such as, gender, race, sexuality, etc.). Faculty worked together to explore the nuances of disability justice vs. disability rights, and explore new ways to engage their teaching practices that disrupts the ways ableism, heterosexism, sexism, racism, and other forms of oppression  intersect with disability. 

• Graduating First-Generation Students

  • Faculty explored the systemic and institutional forms of oppression that influence first generation student success across disciplines/fields. Faculty made determinations about how to achieve inclusive excellence in their courses through exploration of teaching practices, student learning needs, and CSU and SJSU institutional data. 

• The Power of Instructional Videos

  • Faculty learned how to create effective instructional videos, utilize these videos throughout the academic year to gauge the effectiveness of the videos on student learning (engagement, assessment/performance task success, etc.), and develop a (personal, course or department) digital video archive.

• Moving Beyond Land Acknowledgements: Centering Indigenous People

  • Taking up decolonization in higher education and beyond is a historical project. Faculty explored decolonization efforts in education and beyond. They developed content and resources to advance the thought leadership at SJSU around decolonization and honoring indigenous land and life with intentionality. 

• The Time is Now: Sustainability and Climate Justice

  • Faculty explored the impact of sustainability and climate justice on student success, particularly the success of students from Indigenous communities, low SES communities, and other communities highly affected by climate change. They developed content and resources to advance the thought leadership at SJSU around sustainability and climate justice.

Have a great idea for an FLC? Please contact Magdalena Barrera, Vice Provost for Faculty Success.